viernes, 25 de noviembre de 2016

Trump’s energy policies are cause for concern

The belief in human-driven global
warming should not be incompatible with political ideology. However, this is
the case in the U.S., where increasing polarization has converted global
warming – a fundamental threat to the human race - into a political, rather than
a scientific issue. As a politically conservative geologist I am convinced that
global warming is being significantly generated by the emission of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere through the use of fossil fuels, particularly coal
and petroleum. To me, it seems illogical that this event should be
treated as an article of faith, rejected by most Republicans and accepted by most
Democrats. It simply does not make sense.

The evidence for global warming as
a product of human activity is overwhelming, see: http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ . In this
report we read: “97 percent or
more of actively publishing climate scientists agree [that] climate-warming
trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In
addition, most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued
public statements endorsing this position”. Among the multiple scientific
organizations subscribing to this position is the one representing my
profession, the Geological Society of America: “The Geological Society of
America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005),
the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human
activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of
the warming since the middle 1900s".

Such an overwhelming scientific
consensus has led to a geopolitical consensus, reached by 197 nations in Paris
last December 2015, in which these nations essentially agreed to make all
necessary efforts to limit global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius
above the existing average temperature and to accomplish a transition from a
high to a low carbon economy. As of today 103 of the 197 countries have
ratified this agreement, including the United States. A gigantic international
effort has been put in motion to try to reach this important goal.
Failure to accomplish it will result into significant meteorological
disasters involving floods, droughts, desertification and decimation of animal
and vegetal species. The situation we are witnessing today, if unchecked, will
lead to major disturbances of the planet’s climate resulting in natural
catastrophes and could even lead to war among governments with conflicting
views on the issue.

The victory of Donald Trump in the
recent U.S. presidential elections could introduce such major changes in the
posture of the United States government in relation to this issue that they
could seriously threaten the integrity of the Paris Agreement. In a summary of
Mr. Trump’s first 100 days in power, see: http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501451368/here-is-what-donald-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days we read that he would "cancel the Paris
climate agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global
warming programs." The elected president is also reported as
saying that he would keep promoting the exploitation of coal, the intensive use
of fracking to generate shale oil and shale gas and allow the utilization of
federal lands for oil and gas drilling. He has also promised to ask TransCanada
to renew its permit application for the Keystone XL pipeline.

Not all these stated policies are negative. Promoting the
production of light oil from shales can have a positive impact on the
environment, if such production displaces heavier, more contaminating oil being
currently produced in Canada, Russia and Venezuela. The Republican Party
platform does not exclude the development of cleaner forms of energy, although
they make it clear that such promotion will have to come exclusively from the
private sector.

However, Mr. Trump’s purpose of abandoning the global agreement
reached in Paris by practically all nations in the planet has to be seen as a
major threat to humanity. The Paris agreement has been designed to convert the
current high carbon model into a low carbon model and Mr. Trump’s policies
would greatly endanger this objective.

In the recent Marrakesh Climate Change conference, held to
reaffirm the purposes of the Paris agreement, the policies announced by Donald
Trump came as a major shock. In that conference, the countries expressed the hope
that Trump would reconsider his announced intentions regarding such a
fundamental global project. Others were less optimistic. Michael Brune, Sierra
Club’s Director, said: “Donald Trump has the unflattering distinction of being the
only head of state in the entire world to reject the scientific consensus that
humans are driving climate change”.

Disregarding the Paris agreement could cause a major political
crisis in the world and could lead to universal condemnation for the United
States. It would be unthinkable that the United States could emerged as
the main saboteur of an agreement reached by practically all countries of earth
to protect the environment.

In recent days, Mr. Trump has somewhat retreated from his original
position and now says: “I have an open
mind about global warming and now feel there is some linkage between global
warming and human activity”.

Let us hope that the great humanistic tradition of this country
prevails over selfish, nationalistic interests.

22 comentarios:

Roberto Carlos
dijo...

I cannot believe that you Mr. Coronel of all people would fall for the 97% number. That number is as phony as a three dollar bill. It is based on a "do you believe in global warming" online survey in 2009 conducted by the U of Illinois in which 160 "scientists" responded most of which were not even climatologists.If you were really a scientist you would have to be very skeptical of anything in which 97% of "scientists" agree other than the earth is round. I cannot believe that you Mr. Coronel of all people would not realize that the IPCC is a UN organization -just like you favorite FAO, do you trust FAO?- absolutely political in nature, that reflects the overall agenda of the United Nations to punish/diminish the US in any way they can. They are already demanding reparations from the US for having damaged the climate.I cannot believe that a scientist like yourself did not research on how the "computer models" have completely missed the catastrophic predictions they have made, Manhattan was supposed to be underwater in 2012, the North Carolina and Florida coasts also underwater by 2015, the Himalayan glaciers would be gone in 15 years, food supply would decrease -well it actually did in Venezuela- and milk would cost 12 dollars a gallon and gas 9 dollars a gallon by 2015.I cannot believe that a scientist like yourself would not consider the other side of the coin, would there be any benefits to mankind from an increase of 1 degree in overall temperature?I cannot believe that a "scientist" like yourself would not consider the costs of the proposed "solutions". Do you realize that the even the "Paris accords" recognize that all their proposed huge disruptions to the global economy would not achieve any meaningful reduction in temperature? It is a completely political document not worth the paper is printed on. Do you realize Mr. Coronel that the people that are for it are the same leftist that keep pushing for dialog in Venezuela, the Pope, Obama, Kerry, the Clintons, the Castros, Evo, Maduro. How could you want to be on their side on this?

I think you fell for it "line hook and sinker" because 97% of the "scientists" are in agreement and you are a "scientist" no?

I cannot believe that you Mr Roberto Carlos could not see your own blindness regarding this.It doesn't matter if climate change is human induced or not to accept that it is happenning.It does not matter that institutions that are corrupt or ideologically different than you (or me) believe it is an issue.Would you deny that childhood hunger is a problem just because FAO believes it as well?It does not matter that some models (not backed by the majority) are too alarmist and non realistic.The real point here is, if we do agree that the earth is warming ( we do) and that warming is causing some very alarming changes (clearly visible on satellite imagery), should we do SOMETHING to slow it down or reverse it?I'm sure that Maduro, Evo and Fidel Castro are against pedophilia.Does that mean we should not pass any laws against it because we don't want to be in the same as those idiots?Really? Is that our compass?The Paris accords are not meant to roll back temperature change, they are meant to slow it down.I for one believe it is a worthy cause that should not be tainted by cheap ideology.

There is no realistic way to make fossil fuels clean. All of these climate agreements are just ineffective band-aids. The world must find other ways to make power and phase fossil fuels out as it converts. There is no magic way out of this mess by passing laws.

As a humble regional geologist and stratigrapher, I have studied the effect of eustatic cycles on sedimentation for many years in many locations around the world. Detailed biostratigraphy world wide shows same aged cycles to be present over a large portion of the planet.Detailed studies of sequence stratigraphy (brought to prominence by P. Vail, R. Mitchum and J. Sangree at Exxon in the 1970'0s) shows the larger scale cycles (10's to 100's of millions of years) to be related to related to continental break and gathering of the continents. Cycles of 100 Ka to 5 Ma to be related to glacial cycles. 20-40 Ka cycles related to Milankovich orbital cycles. Most of the eustatic rises and falls are related to increases and decreases of the ice captured in the ice caps, and the resultant increase and decrease of water available to fill the oceanic basins.

Studies of the varves in DSDP cores in the Cariaco basin in the Pleistocene to recent indicate an even higher order of cyclicity which can be correlated to oceanic and solar forcings which affect climate. Well before man existed.

Climate driven cycles have occurred for a large part of earth's history, and the effects can be observed in a wide variety of manifestations and scales worldwide:, sediments, ice cores, stalagtites-stalagmites, tree rings, carbon isotopes etc.

When I first read one of the early summaries of the IPPC reports in the early 1990's, the one thing that really struck me was, that the report was geared to identify and "fix" man's effect on global warming as a result of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It occurred to me at the time, that before you try to fix something, you have to know what is wrong. It has always appeared to me that a step was missing in the scientific process. The missing step was " what are the processes which cause global warming and what effect does each process have on the earth's temperature?" This step never happened. The IPPC went straight from Hypothesis to Conclusions, “CO2 warms the world---Man generates some of it--How do we eliminate manmade CO2.

There are many processes which affect the earth's temperature, and we still are not at the stage to even identify which contributing factors are important or their scale and magnitude. At the same time, global warming and cooling is not a recent phenomena. The earth has heated and cooled for at least the last billion years, so this is nothing new to the geologic community.

I believe that before nations of the world spend multiple tens of trillions of dollars to correct something, which will significantly change the world's economic landscape and affect billions of people; the first effort should be made to identify the cause of whatever they are trying to fix then determine whether it can or needs to be fixed.In any scientific study, the analysis has to be done first before you can reach any conclusions, not after yu have reached your conclusions. This is poor science. But on top of that, the recommendation to spend trillions of dollars to fix a problem based on poor science is criminal.

This isn't the first time that corrupt "science" has been used to impose public policy. Take the example of lysenkoism on agriculture in Russia and China, and the subsequence massive death by starvation of millions, because science was manipulated by corrupt scientists and politicians.

My point is before I would agree/disagree with either side of this argument, It is prudent to examine the rigorous science and application of the scientific method, where from my point of view, has been extremely flawed and manipulated.

If you were still an exploration manager: Would you drill this 10 Trillion Dollar well, if you found out that your geologists had arrived at their conclusions first, and then made their analysis match their conclusions and recommendations?

Link to IPPC history :https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2016/11/29/the-politicization-of-climate-science-is-not-a-recent-phenomenon/